Sith Lords Are Our Speciality
by ardavenport
Summary: There's more than one way to kill a Sith. Original character Jedi point-of-view with Kenobi and Ahsoka.


**SITH LORDS ARE OUR SPECIALITY**

by ardavenport

* * *

"What's going on?" Camil Roose backed up to the rough rock wall to let the line of heavy-battle droids double-time past in the corridor.

"Hah! Captain Wern has captured a Jedi General!" Sergent Lamtrez bared a yellow fang, the loose furry skinn around his eyes crinkling in glee. "The Big Master will pay a lot for this one."

Roose's eyes widened; he quickly recovered and raised a hand. "You want to show me this one."

The vain and self-important pirate underling's bloodshot eyes went vacant for a second before they re-focused on his now goal of showing off Captain Wern's great accomplishment to a newly hired mercenary. He led the way, following the line of droids toward the inner chambers of the fortress. Roose's eyes scanned and noted every turn, every security scanner and intruder trap.

Roose had only been in the fortress a few days and he had not seen the command areas or even been presented to Captain Wern yet with the other hired mercenaries. Wern's gang was always looking for new muscle and it was not hard for the undercover Jedi intelligence operative to impress them with his fighting skill. These pirates, who had suddenly and mysterious risen in importance in intercepted Separatist communications, did not seem to be too cautious about who they hired.

They arrived at a massive metaloid door, red and orange alert lights flashing, three heavily armed droids on either side. Their red eyes sensors scanned past the newcomers, apparently recognizing them as 'not-enemies', but nothing more. Sergent Lamtrez momentarily paused, uncertain. The lower-level thug did not really have a good reason to be there and Roose's Force influence on his mind didn't cover that.

Inhaling, staring forward at the blank gray barrier, Roose raised a hand, held close to his body at his waist. The Force filled the space from the small sweep of his two extended fingers to the heavy metaloid and the mechanisms that controled it. Roose exhaled. The heads of the droids swiveled around as the flashing lights changed to yellow and green, the doors groaning as they pulled apart. Roose gave Sargent Lamtrez a push, propelling him forward past the guards who stepped aside for them.

Roose had been prepared to completely blame Lamtrez for chosing this moment to present a low-level mercenary hire to the pirate captain, but it was unnecessary. The door let them into a huge anteroom with corridors on either side that led to lift tubes and a gallery overlooking the command center. The sentry droids just assumed that they had the authority to be there since the ones outside had let them in.

Roose headed Lantrez toward the lifts. As soon as they were on the upper level, Roose laid an hand on Sargent Lamtrez's shoulder and whispered in his ear. "Nice dark spot here. No one'll notice if you catch a short nap here; they've been working us too hard anyway." He caught the slumping sargent and gently laid him down and draped a wall curtain over him. Fortunately he didn't snore too loudly.

Staying back in the shadows, Roose peered down into the pit of the command center. His jaw tightened. Captain Wern had indeed captured a Jedi general. And not just a general, a Jedi Council member, too.

General Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And he wasn't alone. Bound to the other side of the tall stone pillar was a young girl, probably Jedi. Kenobi was a rather plain, though a bit barbigerous, Human type. Hair as brown and thick as any Jedi robe, on his head and face. His clothes were very traditional, blrown belt, pale tunic and tabbards accented with white armor for the legs, arms and chest. His forearms were pinned to the pillar with energy binders, along with faintely blue-glowing cable around his waist and snaking around his legs, but Kenobi hardly flinched. Wern knew how to hold onto a Jedi prisoner. Scrambling the senses, especially just the sense of touch, could disable a Jedi's connection to the Force

Kenobi wasn't alone either. Pinned to the opposite side of the pillar was a young girl. She had to be someone's Padawan. Even in war, Roose couldn't imagine the Council promoting Knights that young. And she was as colorful as Kenobi was plain, a Torguda, bright orange with white makings, gray and white lekku and horns though they were short and immature. She was small and skinny with youth, bare orange arms and torso. Her close fitting clothes were not Jedi traditional except for the muted brown colors. And unlike Kenobi who stood still and tall, his wary eyes alert for any potential for escape, the girl winced and tensed from the discomfort of the bindings.

Wern had his back to them as he consulted with his three lieutenants, one of whom had hired Roose under his mercenary name, Tirisco.

"Leave us!" Wern suddenly whirled around, away from his underlings, his red cape swirling behind him.

"But, Sir - - "

"Leave! And take the droids, too!" Wern's lips curled up from his silvered teeth, his whole posture threatening. The underlings flinched and backed away. Roose backed up further into the shadows, but none of the departing pirates glanced upwards. The doors rumbled closed. The lights turned fractionally darker.

"Ah, alone at last." Kenobi's tone was light. He was a general and a diplomat, a negotiator. Treaties, cease fires, hostage exchanges. Those skills had elevated him to the Jedi Council at a fairly young age. Roose sensed the Force thicken, like an increase in humidity in the air. But it couldn't be so easy; just mind influence a pirate captain into letting him go. And it wasn't.

"Perhaps we could sit down and discuss - - "

"Silence!"

The air turned cold with a hard edge of evil that dispelled Kenobi's warm influence. Roose tensed in surprise. Kenobi drew back and the Padawan gasped.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Wern threw his arms out, throwing his cape back. Surprise and worry shadowed Kenobi's face now. Wern had his back to Roose, so he couldn't see what the general saw. But he felt it.

Wern waved an arm inward and then a bright red blade hissed and waved out. Wern started to pace before his Jedi prisoners with his Sith lightsaber, showing it off.

"Your mind tricks won't work on me, General Kenobi. My Master has warned me about you Jedi."

"Indeed. I had no idea that Dooku was looking for a new assassain."

The Togruta Padawan's large blue eyes looked up toward the general and then back down at this unexpected threat. Wern kept pacing.

"Ha! You think I serve Dooku? When my Master teaches me all the ways of the Dark Side I will replace that old man." Wern gave his red lightsaber another twirl. There was dark power in the air..

"Really?" Kenobi sounded quite interested. "And here I had always thought that Sith only took on one apprentice at a time."

"Dooku might be the apprentice _now_, but my Master has trained me in the Dark Arts as well. And if I am worthy – and I am – I will take that worn out old Jedi's place." He pointed the tip of the red blade at Kenobi. "And you Jedi will be crushed."

"Oh, I've heard that before. So, you're going to be Count Dooku's replacement? And what about Dooku's assassain, Ventress?"

Wern waved the saber dismissively. "If she wishes to serve me, I'll consider it."

"She's proven to be quite a handful for Dooku . . . "

Kenobi did a pretty decent job of keeping Wern talking and bragging, playing him for time, looking for an opening. But while Wern was vain and arrogant, he was also impatient.

"Enough!"

Wern advanced, waving his Sith weapon. "You can do your talking to my Master when I deliver you to him." Wern's laugh turned evil as he raised his saber. "After you watch me dispatch this Jedi youngling, and then cut off your arms and legs."

"No, Wait!" Instantly, Kenobi's casual attitude changed. The Padwan hunched her shoulders as much as she could, futilely trying to make herself as small a target as possible.

The Force flared, magnifying Wern's dark intent and sharpening Roose's sight on the whole scene, but particularly on a silver glint below and behind Wern. Two captured lightsabers, put aside on a control consode in the command center.

'This is a stupid idea.'

The thought flashed across Roose's mind as he crouched and sprang out from his hiding place, somersaulting through the rapid arc of his descent. The two sabers flew to his outstretched hands as he landed, the Force absorbing the impact in his legs and knees. Blue and green blades hissed into life.

'No one ever said the Force was smart.'

Wern whirled, his large, featureless orange eyes aimed at him.

"What is this?!"

Roose sized up his opponent. Other than holos, this was the first really good look he had of the pirate captain. He was Querak, more than a head taller than Roose and sapling thin with long wiry arms and legs that were not impeded at all by his blue body armor. Roose was much larger in the body, with broad shoulders, clad in his own grim-gray mercenary armor. But armor was no good against a lightsaber cut.

Taking a step back, Roose was shocked again by the pure malevolence radiating from Wern. The Council had warned about this, but words were a pale immitation of feeling the real thing. But his top priority – even above his intelligence-gathering mission as a spy masquerading as a hired gun – was to defeat the Sith. Especially when they were about to execute helpless Padawans and chop up Jedi Council members. Unfortunately, the only Jedi who had any experience with actually killing a Sith for the last thousand years was pinned to a pillar behind Wern.

Roose twirled the sabers before him, a defensive move, keeping Wern back. Kenobi's eyes widened and then narrowed in recognition. The heavier one in his left hand had to be Kenobi's, the lighter green one the Padawan's. And Kenobi's eyes went to his blue lightsaber. And then to him with an expression of recogniton. Only the Jedi Council knew who their spies were; they did not share that information even with the Chancellor. But Kenobi was on the Council and he would also know how fairly average Roose was with his own lightsaber, which was safely tucked away in his rarely used room back at the Jedi Temple.

With his silvery grin, teeth like rows of needles, Wern lunged forward, the tip of the red blade coming between the green and blue almost to Roose's neck. He barely deflected the strike and lept to the side, blue and green energy blades whirling. Security cameras exploded; control panels sparked as Roose cut through them.

Wern laughed, a cruel heartless sound. "You think I need to call for help?" The pirate blocked his path to his most important target, the controls that would release the energy binders on the prisoners.

Roose spun away from another near miss.

"Who are you?!"

Roose lost one saber when one blow came down at the base of the green blade, the impact felt all the way up to his shoulder.

"Who are you?!"

Backing away, both hands gripped on hilt of the blue lightsaber like a lifeline, Roose managed to effectively deflect the next attack. He felt like he was suffocating in Wern's hatred.

"Stand and fight you coward!" Wern's rage increased and Roose was again forced dodge to the side. He felt the heat of the Sith blade narrowly missing his legs as he jumped up, flipped in the air and landed in the center of the room, right in front of the two captives. His finger twitched on the lightsaber activation switch, deliberately making the blade flicker.

Once. Twice. The blade hissed and vanished.

Snarling, Wern jumped high, landing before him with a sweep of the red blade that Roose dodged below.

"I don't care who you are! You're finished."

Roose dodged the next two strikes. He was a flitterwing caught in hot gusts of evil, but always slipping away from the deadly energy the Sith's blade. The black, red-outlineed shadows cast from the active weapon shifted back and forth wildly around them. Roose had always been stronger at evasion, one of his best qualities in Jedi Intelligence. But his dance further enraged the Sith, who struck harder and faster.

"Master Kenobi! He's going get killed! We have to help him!"

"Ahsoka!" The authority in Kenobi's voice shut up the Padawan's useless and distracting outburst. But even better, it conveyed authority and strength, support that Roose badly needed; Kenobi knew what he was doing. That Roose was still fighting, but his lighsaber blade was only his focus in the Force, an invisible shadow blade that his opponent could not see and did not give clues to where he would strike.

Roose bent backward, his body horizontal with the floor, right under the beam of red fire that would have cut him in half. Springing back up, face-to-chest with the Sith, he blocked Wern's saber arm from pulling his weapon back and hit the activation switch of the saber in his own hand.

The Sith blade abruptly went off, clattering to the floor. Captain Wern's mouth froze in an open gape, his head falling forward in total shock from lightsaber blade piercing him from the lightsaber hilt pressed to his chest and out his back. There wasn't enough room to pull it out and Roose needed to make sure of the kill, so he slashed upward, halving Wern's head. Then he stepped away from the corpse as it fell. It was a spectacularly savage blow, but Roose had always had terrible form anyway.

The Force left him like a fever breaking and he allowed himself a few long exhales to let the fight go before went to the controls to the binding energy field and released the prisoners. Both of them slumped to their knees as soon the energy field went off. A few quick hits with the lightsaber blade elemintated the metal binders and the cables. Kenobi recovered first and he helped the Padawan, Ahsoka, stand. Deactivating the saber, Roose pointed.

"I came in from up there, but we'll have to fight our way through the sentry droids. It'll take them a little time to get in here. If we can get to the landing bay, we can steal Wern's ship. My guess is that they won't shoot it down until they confirm he's dead." Roose flipped the saber over and handed it over to Kenobi, pommel first. He looked around, but he hadn't seen where Ahsoka's weapon had gone to in the fight. But Kenobi had and it came to his outstretched hand; he handed it to her.

Roose was right. The droids were no match for two Jedi and Roose's blaster and they reached the ship bay in a few minutes. A blaster was a poor substitute for a lightsaber, but with the Force Roose never missed unless he intended to and he made sure every shot counted. Ahsoka certainly noticed and she looked like she might say something to him, perhaps some inquiry that he would not answer; the stern glare he gave her warned her off.

The alarms caused by the sudden blackout of the pirate base's command center were perfect cover for them to get to Wern's private ship. No cannon fire stopped them on the way out and Kenobi piloted the ship low among the planet's mountains, using them as cover from any tracking sensors.

"Master, shouldn't we get out of here? Rendevous with the fleet?" Ahsoka finally asked when it became clear that Kenobi was not leaving the planet even though the little ship had a hyperdrive along with oversized weapons and shields. Kenobi was heading for the desolate world's only spaceport.

"Ahsoka, I want you to go aft and stay there."

"But - -"

"And Ahsoka, you never saw this man and you will never, ever speak of him to anyone but the Jedi Council, not even to your Master."

"But - -"

"Padawan!"

Ahsoka's mouth shut.

"You will not ever speak of this incident again. As far as you are concerned we escaped on our own. Do I make myself clear, Padawan?"

In the corner of his eye, Roose saw Ahsoka's large blue eyes shift toward him, but he didn't look back. She wasn't his concern and she was a good fighter; better with a lightsaber than he had ever been at her age.

She bowed her horned head. "Yes, Master." She left the cockpit and Kenobi locked the door behind her. Sitting in pilot and co-pilot's seats, they stared out over the plain below, occasionally broken by a crooked river or clumps of dark purple trees.

"I'm going to have to let you off at the spaceport." Kenobi kept his hands on the controls.

"That's fine. Nothing more to be learned here, anyway." Especially after he'd killed Wern. "I'll get a transport back to my base." No reason for Kenobi to know where that was. And Kenobi well knew that, too. "You might want to pass on to Master Mundi what happened though, as soon as you get back to the Temple."

Kenobi nodded. "I will. Did you know that Wern was a Sith?"

Roose shook his head. "I had no idea. I just got in a couple days ago and I wasn't looking for Sith, either." He grimaced. "Whatever happened to that rule of two that Master Yoda told us about? Only one Master and and one Apprentice? Dooku came out as the Apprentice and we're still looking for the Master. How does Wern fit into that? One and one don't make three."

"Sith are always looking for ways to betray each other. This little incident tells us that that the Sith Lord we're looking for is not expecting Count Dooku to succeed him. That is valuable intelligence indeed. But Wern wasn't a true Apprentice."

"You could've fooled me." He turned his head; Kenobi's bearded profile was framed by blue sky and clouds through the side view port. "That was real Darkness I felt back that. If that wasn't Sith, I don't know what is." Roose bit his lip before continuing. "Was it like that for you?"

Master Yoda had fought Count Dooku, the rogue former Jedi Master and Separtist leader trying to bring down the Galactic Republic with his war, but Dooku got away. Kenobi was the only Jedi in the last thousand years to kill a Sith. His profile remained unmoving, like a statue.

"It was worse. . . . much worse," he finished in a lower voice. Kenobi had defeated the Sith that killed his Master, the act that he was knighted for. He had not passed any traditional trials to show he was worthy of Knighthood because that Jedi Council could not devise any test greater what he had already survived. Roose lowered his eyes, now embarrassed by his sudden curiosity.

"But that was a Sith that you killed back there." Kenobi's voice had gotten suddenly loud with a tone of forced cheer. Roose looked up and Kenobi smiled with his lips only. "The Council will make you a Master for that."

Roose sat back in surprise. "Me? A Master?"

Kenobi's grin broadened, becoming a little more real; Roose suspected that he was just glad to change the subject. "Oh yes. At the very least. Though only you and the Council will know about it for the time being."

Of course. That had to be. Officially, he wasn't even alive. He'd been declared a casualty of war last year, so he could serve as an intelligence operative, a Jedi spy, in complete secrecy. Roose did not know who else, but he was not the only one. But some day, when the war was over, he would be known as the second Jedi in a thousand years to kill a Sith. He sat back in his seat, allowing himself a little smile. They were approaching the space port, it's tall towers on the horizon.

Someday.

* * *

**### ### ### END ### ### ###**

* * *

**Disclaimer: **This story was first posted on tf.n 28-Oct-2012. All characters and the Star Wars universe belong to George and Lucasfilm; I am just playing in their sandbox.


End file.
